The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1887-06-30

God we had more faith in that gospel
The humblest man in this house, if he had
enough faith in him, could bring 100
souls TO Jesus-perhaps 500. Just in pro-
portion as this age seems to believe less
and less ilf it, / believe moro and moro in
it. What are men about that they will
not accept their own deliverance? There
is nothing proposed by men that can do
anything like this gospel. The religion
of Ralph Waldo Emerson is the
philosophy Of icicles; the religion of
Theodore Parker was sirocco of
the desert, covering up the soul with
dry sand; the religion of Renan is the
romance of believing nothing; the religion
of Thomas Carlyle is only condensed
London fog; the religion of the Huxleys
end the Spencers is merely pedestal on
which human philosophy sits shivering in
the night of the soul, looking up to the
stars, offering no help to the nations that
crouch and groal at the base. Tell me
whero there is one man who has rejected
that gospel for another, who is thoroughly
satisfied and helped and contented in his
skepticism, and l will take the car to-
morrow and ride 500 miles to see him.
The full power of the gospel has not yet
been touched. AS asportsman throws up
his hand and catches the ball flying
gospel after while catch this round
world flying from its orbit and bring it
back to the heart of Christ. Give it full
swing, and it will pardon every sin, heal
every wound, cure every trouble, enamel
pate every slave, and ransom every ma
ton. Ye Christian men and women who
go out this afternoon to do Christian work,
as you go into the Sunday schools and
the lay preaching stations and the peni-
tendaries and the asylums, / want you to
feel that You bear in your hand q weapon,
compared with which the lightning has
no speed, and avalanches no heft, and the
thunderbolts of heaven have no power; it
is the arrow of the omnipotent gospel.
Take careful aim. Pull the arrow clear
back until the head strikes the bow
Then let it fly And may the slain OF the
Lord be many.
Again: if you want TO be skillful in
spiritual hunting you must hunt in un-
frequented and secluded places. Why
does the hunter go three or four days ia
the Pennsylvania forests or over Raquette
lake into the wilds of the Adirondacks?
1t is the only way TO do. The deer are
shy, and one ''bang" of the gun clears
the forest. From the California stage
you see, as you go over the plains, here
within range of the gun-sometimes quite
within range of it. No one cares for that;
ii is worthless. The good game is hidden
and secluded. Every hunter knows that.
| So, many Of the souls that will be of
most worth for Christ. and of most value
to the church, are secluded They do not
come in your way. You will have to go
where they are, Yonder they are down
in that cellar yonder they are up in that
garret. Far away from the door of any
church, the gospel arrow has not been
pointed at them. The tract distributor
and the city missionary sometimes Just
catch glimpse OF them as hunter
through the trees gets momentary sight
Of partridge or roebuck, The trouble
is, we are waiting for the game to come to
us. We are not good hunters. We are
standing in Schermerhorn street, expect
ing that the timid antelope will come up
and eat out of our hand. We are expect
ing that the prairie fowl will light on our
church steeple. 1t is not their habit If
the church should wait 10000, eco of
years for the world to come in and be
saved, it will wait in vain, Tho world
will not come. What tho church wants
now is to lift their feet from damask otto
mans, and put them in the stirrups. We
want pulpit on wheels. The church
wants not so much cushions cs io wants
saddle bags and arrows. We have got to
put aside the gown and the kid gloves,
and put on the hunting shirt. We have
been fishing so long in tho brooks that
run under the shadow of the church that
the fish know Us, and they avoid the hook
and escape as soon as We come to
the bank, while yonder is Upper Saranac
and Big Tupper's lake, where the first
swing of the gospel net would break it
for the multitude of the fishes, There is
outside work to be done, What is that l
see in the backwoous9 1t is tent. The
hunters have made clearing and camped
out. What do they care If they have wet
feet, or if they have nothing but pine
branch for q pillow or for the northeast
storm? If o moose in the darkness steps
into the lake to drink, they hear it right
away. If Q loon cry in the midnight
they hear it. So in the service Of God we
have exposed work. We have got TO camp
out and rough it. We ere putting all our
care on the 10000 people of Brooklyn,
who, they say, come to church. What
are we doing for the 100000 that DO not
come? Have they no souls? Arc they
sinless that they need no pardcnf
Are there no dead in their houses
that they need no comfort9 Are they cut
off from God, TO go into eternity--no wing
to bear them, no light to cheer them, no
welcome to greet thema l hear today
surging up from the lower depths cl
Brooklyn groan that comes through our
Christian assemblages and through our
Christian churches; and it blots ont all
this scene from my eye2 today, as by the
mists Of great Niagara, for the dash and
the plunge of these great torrents of life
dropping down into the fathomless and
laundering abyss of suffering and woe.
sometimes think that, just as God blottcd
out the church of Thyatira and Corinth
and Laodioea, because CT their sloth and
stolidity, he will blot cut American and
English Christianity, aud raise on the
ruins stalwart, wide awake missionary
church, that can take thu full meaning OF
that command: "Go into all the world and
preach the Gospel to cve'y creature. He
that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved, and he that belie7 sth not shall bt
damned"
1 remark, further, if you want TO sue
ceed in Gospel hunting, you must have
courage If the hunter stand with trem-
bling hand or shoulder that fiinches witt
fear, instead of his taking the catamount
the catamount takes him, What would
become Of the Greenlander if, when ou
hunting for the bear, he should stand
, shivering with terror on an iceberg? What
: would have become of Du Chaillu and Liv
| ingstone in the African thicket, with {
, faint heart and q weak knee? When 1
, panther comes within twenty PAGES o1
{ you, and it has its eyes on you, and it has
| squatted for the fearful spring, "Steady
{ there"
5 Courage, o 70 spiritual hunterss There
t are great monsters of iniquity prowline
9 around about the community. Shall W,
2 not in the strength of God go forth anC
: combat them? We not only need mor'
: heart, but moro backbone. What is tht
Church of God that it should fear to lool
G in the eye any transgression? There Il
Q the Bengal tiger Of drunkenness tha
a prowls around and instead Of attacking
e it, how many of us hide under the churcl
/. psw or the communion table? There 4
5 80 much invested in it we are afraid e
2 } assault it; millions Ct dollars in barrels
r. @